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Newborn keepers are spawned from a device called a 'technonest', a process that leaves the parent keeper reduced to a shrivelled blackened husk. Born with a high degree of self-awareness but no sense of being or purpose, a keeper is immediately bonded to a Drakh. Driven only by instinct it digs its still short and stubby tendrils into the specialised nourishing pouch on the Drakh's chest and becomes a part of the Drakh Entire as a whole, though it will always remain especially responsive to the individual Drakh to which it bonds. Once bonded to a Drakh the keeper quickly matures and an exceptional specimen can become fully grown in as little as three days and ready to be implanted into a thrall.[1]

The skin of a keeper is covered with microfibers that dig into the victim's skin and hook into their neural system. The creature itself is built like a series of synaptic relays that can cut into the neural pathways and override them and the longer they stay attached to a host the more microfibers it grows and the greater its ability to control becomes, so its control over a given host grows as it does.[2]

The keeper can not be completely removed from its host while both it and its Drakh controller are alive, and even if most of it is somehow destroyed or excised, it will quickly regenerate. It can, however, be incapacitated if the host consumes enough alcohol, due to its symbiotic nature.[3][4] A keeper can choose to disengage itself from its host but it is a lengthy process and is usually lethal to the host.[4][5]

Around the same time the Drakh began to influence the Centauri by attaching a Keeper to Regent Milo Virini, allowing them to influence his actions as part of their long term plan of retaliation against the actions Londo Mollari and the Centauri Republic took when they executed Morden and his two Shadow "associates" and destroyed the Shadow base on the island of Selini.[6]

In 2278, David Sheridan II had a Keeper attach itself to him from an ancient urn from Londo Mollari who was under Drakh control by means of another Keeper. Sheridan headed for Centauri Prime in order to lure his parents into following him there. Despite a plea from Michael Garibaldi not to rush off to Centauri Prime, both of Sheridan's parents went anyway, and were both captured by the Centauri. Garibaldi went to Babylon 5, where he was able to learn from Vir Cotto that the Drakh had been on Centauri Prime for quite some time, and that they were in control of the Emperor and Prime Minister.[7]

Emperor Mollari's Keeper awakens.

Mollari was ordered by the Drakh to have David's parents killed - however, he arranged their escape after drinking enough to gain a few minutes of freedom from the Keeper's influence. Upon returning to Minbar, David Sheridan II was examined by Doctor Stephen Franklin. Franklin figured out that the only way to remove the Keeper without killing Sheridan would be to kill the Drakh that spawned the Keeper.

Vir Cotto and Garibaldi returned to Centauri Prime and found the Drakh Shiv'kala, who had spawned the Keeper. Vir killed the Drakh, which in turn also killed the Keeper.

A Dreamweaver was a special offshoot breed of keeper, used to create and implant dreams while a subject sleeps. In late 2262, Shiv'kala used a Dreamweaver to encourage Durla's ambitions and urging him to send archaeological teams to K0643.[8] He continued to use this method over the course of many years to guide Durla's actions, even going so far as to supply detailed weapons designs.[7]